Madly
by Mitsukaii
Summary: I loved you first.


**Madly**

It simply isn't possible, walking away from a war without at least the slightest bit of damage to one's mental health. In most cases, the damage is irreparable. One would have to make it out alive, first of all. Many would consider this the hardest part. In Sora's case, it wasn't. Walking away from that war thinking he would return to Destiny Islands a hero (only to find out he was terribly wrong) wasn't the hardest part, either_, _nor was being deemed insane by his detached islanders.

"_The Heartless were real, guys, I swear—_"

His repeated attempts to explain his whereabouts during his three-year disappearance ultimately landed him in a private, overly sanitary room at the Island's facility for the mentally ill. But this did not bother him as much. Not as much as…

"_Tell them, Kairi, tell them I've been fighting a war. Tell them—that I'm not crazy._"

He remembered her silence, the tension concentrated between the middle of her brow line, her rosy pursed lips as she contained herself beneath the islanders' inquiries and stern stares. Why didn't she defend him? Why didn't she say _something_, anything? Why didn't she seem to care anymore? Why didn't she…

For twelve years, these questions roomed with Sora at the facility, and he wondered why he even bothered seeking the answers if it wasn't going to fix anything. He was supposed to be there to "restore stability to his obviously mentally impaired mind," but there wasn't anything to _fix_. He was there solely due to the fact that no one believed him, and the only other person there who knew the truth—the only other person who truly _mattered_—pretended as though she didn't believe him, either.

And _that_ was the hardest part—that was what hurt him the most.

It had been over a decade, and the only reason behind Sora's release was his internal decision to shut up about his past adventures—_What's the point of being a hero when no one believes you saved anything in the first place?_ Enough time had passed for his psychiatrist to write him up as a recovered case.

Not that he needed any recovering to begin with.

Sora's first step outside of the psychiatric hospital was not as liberating as he had hoped. The ground was the ground and always would be the ground, and nothing was going to change that. He had to be perfectly honest with himself—part of him wanted to turn on his heel and walk right back into the hospital, raging about Heartless and Nobodies just so he would have dinner and a place to stay for the night. But that was the easy way out, and he wasn't too accustomed to that strategy.

Sora was scared to face reality, because his reality had already been rejected.

To restrain himself from turning around, he forced one foot in front of the other and kept walking forward, his deep blue eyes scanning the familiar yet foreign surroundings. It was too surreal and his breath grew short from the awe. Ever since childhood, he always marveled over how a small island floating upon endless waters could retain a universe's worth of beauty.

_She_ retained a universe's worth of beauty, and she was right there on the courtyard, standing fifteen feet away from him as though she had been waiting for quite a while. A small, slender palm tree stood parallel to her own lithe frame, its leaves creating a canopy of green shifting several feet above her head. It shaded her pale face, spaces between the leaves spilling light over her periwinkle eyes. As Sora approached her, it became evident that time had only shaped the pretty girl into a breathtaking, beautiful woman, and it killed his insides.

"Sora."

Her voice was the same—maybe a little deeper, maybe a little too calm for this reunion. Sora could only stare. In the absence of a reply, the worry line Sora knew well began to crease its way between Kairi's shapely auburn brows.

"Please say something. Are you… al—"

"Am I _alright_?" Sora interjected, his voice full of strain, his eyes reflecting twelve years' worth of heartache. _Kairi, you know better than anyone that I've always been alright._ But these words remained unspoken. The redhead stayed silent after his outburst, and Sora held back any further displays of pent-up frustration. As he gazed at her some more, he noticed that she couldn't look at him straight in the eyes.

"You got a haircut," he mumbled, his sea-like gaze unfaltering. Kairi's silken tresses no longer tumbled past her shoulders; instead, a lovely pixie cut framed her delicately aged face. It astounded Sora how she had barely hit thirty and she still looked like a newborn angel—or maybe it was only he who held that belief, since he was still madly in love with her or something. Sora swallowed dryly. "It looks nice on you. But it looks like a mom haircut."

Kairi wrung her hands uncomfortably under the power of the young man's stare, and Sora understood that his slightly playful comment contained the truth.

"You're married now, huh," he whispered, finally tearing his gaze away from her ethereal face. This woman's features didn't seem human at all. She belonged on a different planet, where stars weren't too far from the ground, where multiple moons hung in the clouds—somewhere far away from him. He desperately wanted to find an imperfection, just to assure himself that maybe he deserved her, but to no avail. Her continued silence merely granted affirmation to his half-question, half-statement. "Who's the guy?"

"You don't know him," Kairi finally replied, her words riding on a difficult sigh. "Sora," she paused, as if his name tasted strange on her tongue. She tried again. "Sora, I only came here to apologize."

Sora felt something within him sink. Then, he shook his head. "I don't want an apology."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kairi demanded, the rims of her eyes quickly filling with tears. "How can you just stand there and tell me I don't have anything to be sorry for?" Suddenly, her eyes snapped to connect with his, and Sora's knees nearly buckled beneath him. The imperfection was there, hidden beneath the spirals of her glimmering irises—she was as afraid as he was. His reality was her reality, too, and she had to reject it before anyone else could. "Why aren't you angrier? _Why don't you hate me?_"

Kairi's first sob sent her body jerking forward, and Sora caught her in a tight embrace, absorbing the small lurches accompanying her violent tears. _How did we end up here?_ At that moment, Sora gave up on fully understanding her or any part of this mess. The salty liquid was quickly seeping through his off-white shirt, and the breeze was picking up and Kairi's hair still smelled like paopu fruit and all of a sudden Sora wanted to cry as well, because they weren't best friends anymore—they were strangers.

"I could never hate you."


End file.
